Nguyen, Ha

Person:
Nguyen, Ha

Development Research Group

Author Name Variants

Nguyen, Ha, Nyguen, Ha M.

Fields of Specialization

Financial Sector, Private Sector Development, Global Economy

ORCID

0000-0003-4549-035X

External Links

Google

Departments

Development Research Group

Last updated: July 8, 2025

Biography

Ha Minh Nguyen is an Economist in the Macroeconomics and Growth Team of the Development Research Group. He joined the Bank in July 2009 as a Young Economist after earning a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He also holds a M.A. and B.A. in economics from The University of Adelaide, Australia. His research interests include International Finance and Economic Growth. His current research is on the financial crisis and the real exchange rates.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 51

Climate Change Negotiations under the Shadow of History
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-02) Banuri, Sheheryar; Nguyen, Ha; Sergenti, Ernest J.
Climate change is a global challenge requiring unprecedented levels of collective action. In this context, this paper asks: do appeals to historical responsibility facilitate or hinder collective action? This paper uses a simple lab experiment simulating climate mitigation bargaining between high- and low-income countries. A key design feature is that the need for mitigation is triggered based on historical actions that were undertaken without knowledge of their impact on the environment (and hence, the need for mitigation). Two treatment arms were conducted, a baseline where the cause for mitigation (past actions) is not revealed, and a treatment—“the shadow of history”—where the historical origins of the problem are made explicit. In both conditions, negotiations take place regarding contributions to a mitigation fund (i.e., collective action). Results show that revealing the shadow of history marginally increases average contributions, but the distribution of those contributions changes markedly. When made aware of the historical causes of the climate problem, low-income countries significantly reduce their contributions, while high-income countries contribute more—offsetting the reduction. Critically, the overall welfare of low-income countries increases, while it decreases for high-income countries. Moreover, results from textual analysis of chat data show greater tension when historical responsibility is made explicit, with more negative sentiment and adversarial conversations. These results suggest that appealing to historical responsibility appears to be a successful negotiations tactic for poor countries.
Distributional Crowding Out Effects of Public Debt on Private Investment in Developing Economies
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-06-03) Islam, Asif M.; Nguyen, Ha
The Covid-19 pandemic, followed by financial tightening due inflationary pressure, has raised public debt in developing economies as governments grapple with public health investments to curb the pandemic and collapse in revenues due to slower economic activity. The rise in debt may further disrupt the formal private sector in developing economies. Using two to three waves of panel firm-level data across developing economies, this study finds that higher public debt is correlated with low investment by formal private sector firms. The finding is largely driven by small and medium-size enterprises, domestic firms, and non-exporters — raising concerns about the distributional impacts. Potential channels are uncovered. High levels of debt reduced the accessibility of finance for private sector firms, limiting investment. Furthermore, a regulatory channel is observed. As public debt rises, firms spend more time with regulatory and tax officials, which is possibly indicative of higher efforts of governments to raise revenues. This channel is stronger for small and medium-size enterprises.
Data Transparency and GDP Growth Forecast Errors
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-04-19) Gatti, Roberta; Lederman, Daniel; Islam, Asif M.; Nguyen, Ha; Lotfi, Rana; Mousa, Mennatallah Emam
This paper examines the role of a country’s data transparency in explaining gross domestic product growth forecast errors. It reports four sets of results that have not been previously reported in the existing literature. First, forecast errors—the difference between forecasted and realized gross domestic product growth—are large. Globally, between 2010 and 2020, the average same-year forecast error was 1.3 percentage points for the World Bank’s forecasts published in January of each year, and 1.5 percentage points for the International Monetary Fund’s January forecasts. Second, the Middle East and North Africa region has the largest forecast errors compared to other regions. Third, data capacity and transparency significantly explain forecast errors. On average, an improvement in a country’s Statistical Capacity Index, a measure of data capacity and transparency, is associated with a decline in absolute forecast errors. A one standard deviation increase in the log of the Statistical Capacity Index is associated with a decline in absolute forecast errors by 0.44 percentage point for World Bank forecasts and 0.49 percentage point for International Monetary Fund forecasts. The results are robust to a battery of control variables and robustness checks. Fourth, the role of the overall data ecosystem, not just those elements related to gross domestic product growth forecasting, is important for the accuracy of gross domestic product growth forecasts. Finally, gross domestic product growth forecasts from the World Bank are more accurate and less optimistic than those from the International Monetary Fund and the private sector.
Female-Worker Representation Effect: Gender Pay Variation in the Kuwaiti Civil Service
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-07-05) Bilo, Simon; Nguyen, Ha; AlAnsari, Ebtesam; AlHumaidan, Lama; AlRashidi, Faleh; Ajwad, Mohamed Ihsan
Kuwaiti women working in Kuwait’s civil service earn, on average, 18 percent less than Kuwaiti men. Using a unique data set of all Kuwaiti nationals working in Kuwait’s civil service, this paper analyzes the relationship between wages, gender, and the relative dominance of women in occupations and workplaces. The main finding is that an important portion of the association between gender and wages is explained not by human capital but by occupational and workplace segregation of men and women. Occupations with a higher ratio of women to men tend to have lower wages for both genders when compared to workers in occupations with a lower ratio of women to men. This finding is especially true for women. Workplaces with a higher female-to-male ratio exhibit lower male wages but slightly higher female wages than workplaces with lower female-to-male workplace ratios. The paper calls this latter novel finding the female-worker representation effect.
Natural Resource Dependence and Monopolized Imports
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-03) Arezki, Rabah; Fernandes, Ana; Merchán, Federico; Nguyen, Ha; Reed, Tristan
Countries with greater commodity export intensity have more concentrated markets for imported goods. Within countries over time, import market concentration is associated with higher domestic prices, suggesting that markups due to greater concentration outweigh any potential cost efficiency. Hydrocarbon fuel exporting economies especially have higher tariffs, tariff evasion, and non-tariff measures that concentrate markets. These results suggest a novel channel for the resource curse stemming from the monopolization of imports.
Reality Check: Forecasting Growth in the Middle East and North Africa in Times of Uncertainty
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022-04-11) Islam, Asif M.; Gatti, Roberta; Wood, Christina A.; Lederman, Daniel; Fan, Rachel Yuting; Lotfi, Rana; Mousa, Mennatallah Emam; Nguyen, Ha
The Middle East and North Africa economies face an uncertain recovery. The war in Ukraine presents significant challenges to the global economy and the MENA region. Inflationary pressures brought about by the pandemic are likely to be further exacerbated by the conflict. The potential for rising food prices is even higher, which is likely to hurt the wallets of the poor and vulnerable in the region. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to cast a shadow. As the latest variant sweeps over the region, countries grapple with a host of problems depending on initial conditions and policy priorities. The region, like the rest of the world, is not out of the woods yet. Vaccinations remain the effective path out of the pandemic, leading to lower hospitalizations and death rates. Testing helps curb the spread. During times of uncertainty, it is important to not be overconfident about the region’s growth prospects. Growth forecasts serve as a significant signpost for policymakers to chart a path forward. Over the last decade, growth forecasts in the MENA region have often been inaccurate and overly optimistic, which can lead to economic contractions down the road due to ebullient borrowing. There is considerable room for the region to improve its forecasts that are largely hindered by opaque data systems, growth volatility and conflict. The MENA region lags considerably in the timely production of credible statistics. A key finding of the report is that the best way to improve forecasters is to provide forecasters with as much good quality information as possible.
Contagious Protests
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07) Arezki, Rabah; Dama, Alou Adesse; Djankov, Simeon; Nguyen, Ha
This paper explores the spillover of protests across countries using data on nonviolent and spontaneous demonstrations for 200 countries from 2000 to 2020. Using an autoregressive spatial model, the analysis finds strong evidence of "contagious protests," with a catalyzing role of social media. In particular, social media penetration in the source and destination of protests leads to protest spillovers between countries. There is evidence of parallel learning between streets of nations alongside the already documented learning between governments.
Calamities, Debt, and Growth in Developing Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-04) Yuting Fan, Rachel; Lederman, Daniel; Nguyen, Ha; Rojas, Claudio J.
Public debt in developing economies rose at a fast clip during 2020–21, at least partly due to the onset of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Nobel laureate Paul Krugman opined in early 2021 that “fighting covid is like fighting a war.” This paper argues that the Covid-19 pandemic shares many traits with natural disasters, except for the global nature of the pandemic shock. This paper empirically examines trends in debt and economic growth around the onset of three types of calamities, namely natural disasters, armed conflicts, and external-debt distress in developing countries. The estimations provide quantitative estimates of differences in growth and debt trends in economies suffering episodes of calamities relative to the trends observed in economies not experiencing calamities. The paper finds that debt and growth evolve quite differently depending on the type of calamity. The evidence indicates that public debt and output growth tend to rise faster after natural disasters than in the counterfactual scenario without disasters, thus illustrating how debt-financed fiscal expansions can help economic reconstruction. The findings are different for episodes of debt distress defined as periods of debt restructuring, however. Economies experiencing debt distress are associated with growth trends that are on average below the growth rates of unaffected economies prior to and after the beginning of an episode of debt restructuring.
Trading Together: Reviving Middle East and North Africa Regional Integration in the Post-COVID Era
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-10-19) Arezki, Rabah; Moreno-Dodson, Blanca; Yuting Fan, Rachel; Gansey, Romeo; Nguyen, Ha; Cong Nguyen, Minh; Mottaghi, Lili; Tsakas, Constantin; Wood, Christina
The MENA Economic Update is a product of the World Bank's Office of the Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa. This presents the short-term, macroeconomic outlook and economic challenges facing countries in the region.
From #Hashtags to Legislation: Engagement and Support for Economic Reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-06) Arezki, Rabah; Belmejdoub, Oussama; Diab, Bilal; Kalla, Samira; Nguyen, Ha; Saif, Abdulla; Yotzov, Ivan
Ownership of reforms by citizens is often presented as important for success. This paper explores media engagement and support for economic reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries using text analysis techniques on publicly available sources. The results show that while reform efforts have intensified in recent years in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, these efforts tend to focus on stronger rather than weaker policy areas, potentially limiting the growth-enhancing effect of reforms. Social media analysis using Twitter shows that the population's support for reforms has been declining. The analysis of traditional news media points to more engagement by international than by local media. However, sentiment from international media is less positive about economic reforms in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Sentiment in international media and social media matters, as evidenced by its positive and strong correlation with foreign direct investment inflows into the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.